


Making Love in Adversity

by viklikesfic (v_angelique)



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: AU, Historical, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-08
Updated: 2007-02-08
Packaged: 2017-10-05 09:43:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/40315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/v_angelique/pseuds/viklikesfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I was flipping through my much-loved volume of Ferlinghetti when I came across a poem that strikes me every time, and I decided it needed a story to go with it.  So here is a PWP ficlet, historical AU, set early in World War II.  The poem, "Making Love in Poetry" by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, is copied below for your reference.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Making Love in Adversity

**Author's Note:**

> On second thought, I decided this would be a good candidate for the [](http://community.livejournal.com/14valentines/profile)[**14valentines**](http://community.livejournal.com/14valentines/) challenge peace prompt. Perhaps not quite what you'd have in mind, but it is as it is. Also, you can read this as Elijah/Orlando instead of Dom/Elijah if that's your preferred pairing.

_In a war where every second counts  
Time drops to the ground  
like a shadow from a tree  
under which we lie  
in a wood boat built from it  
by an unknown carpenter beyond the sea  
upon which peach pits float  
fired by a gunner who has run out of ammunition  
for a cannon whose muzzle bites heartshaped holes  
out of the horizon of our flesh  
stunned in sun and baffled into silence  
between the act of sex   
and the act of poetry  
at the moment of loving and coming  
there is no glimpsing of  
the misery of the world_

There is a Jew in my attic.

I know, it's risky. I know that if the authorities find out, if someone comes to search and if Elijah makes the teeniest little squeak, the smallest shifting on the weak floorboards, they will creak and they will hear and they will _know_. I will be deported, off to one of those camps in the East that some whisper about but no one mentions by name.

When I found Elijah, or rather, when Elijah found me, it wasn't like this. I didn't know what was happening. A friend of mine, a Christian, an older man at the factory where I work in Düsseldorf who is English like me, told me about what they were doing to the Jews—what they were starting to do. He had a friend, a young man, whose parents were gone and who might be next to go, but for his silence, his ability to blend in. The authorities never _noticed_ this man, practically a boy, but things were getting worse, and my friend could not hide him himself; he was under too much suspicion already.

And I heard what my country was doing, the feeble attempts that England, once great and now on the verge of annihilation, was making to defend itself. I felt a small surge of patriotism in my heart and though it would be difficult for me to leave now, I could do this. I could hide this boy in my attic.

So Elijah has been here for a few weeks, and the illusion of safety has descended over us, over my little house in the suburbs with its single bedroom and the little closet in the attic, a heavy old upright piano shoved in front of the door. Elijah is thin, and he can slide out and live in the rest of the attic most of the time, but he sleeps in the little closet, just in case, the little closet not even as long as he is. I have started to admire Elijah, in spite of myself. I have started to envy his courage.

I am not courageous. I am not even strong. I am weak, especially when it comes to matters of the heart, and that is what found me, last night, lying in the little closet with Elijah, that claustrophobic space with only a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling and a string to turn it on. I pushed inside his pale body, huddled in an impossible position, a bright Kandinsky curve, and I shuddered and gasped, for he is strong, physically even, his arms despite recent disuse muscled and lithe. His body was warm, welcoming, a perfect respite from this imperfect world, from this war, more horrifying each day. For a few moments, I forgot. Watching his mouth open in a gasp, in a silent scream, feeling him convulse powerfully around my prick and beg me without words to follow him, with his blunt ragged fingernails scratching down my spine, I was able to forget. Only a few moments, but it could be a lifetime, now.

I will _never_ forget that.


End file.
